“Khrushchev Lied” by Grover Furr (Erythrós Press and Media, 2011) is a fascinating book. It exposes Khrushchev’s speech to the 20th Party Congress of the “Communist” Party of the Soviet Union as a complete pack of lies. But it also shows that the claims Stalin was personally responsible for the “Great Purges” is a complete falsehood as well. It actually was a counter-revolutionary plot by many high-ranking Communist Party members. To cover up their schemes, the traitors executed loyal Party members and workers! They even killed off some of their own plotters to cover their trail. In fact, Khrushchev was heavily involved in these killings; Furr showed that it was Stalin who was instrumental in stopping them.

Furr does not investigate how so many traitors managed to get into such high positions (First Secretaries) in the Party organization. In addition, Furr shows that the counter-revolutionary activity went on essentially continuously from the “end” of the capitalist interventions in the 1920s, throughout the 1930s, and even during World War II. But, again, there is no discussion of how so much treachery was “allowed” to continue for so long. Given this information, it is a testament to Stalin, the Red Army, the partisans, and the Soviet working class that they were able to smash the Nazis so decisively.

Furr makes it clear that he is basing all of his investigation on primary sources. He strenously avoids engaging in biased journalism, exactly what so many anti-communist authors do. In a final chapter dealing with Khrushchev’s motives, Furr even refuses to take a definitive stand on why Khrushchev delivered such a fabricated speech.

Furr could have stated outright that Khrushchev explicitly declared that the Soviet Union was restoring capitalism. Khrushchev and his cronies had no idea how long it would take (35 more years for it to become “official” in 1991) and they continued to use Marxist rhetoric in their public declarations while systematically destroying every positive aspect for which many communists had fought and died.

Teachers should encourage their colleagues, especially history teachers, to read this book. It can be used quite well in a Study Group. There is a long appendix and I would suggest reading the relevant section in the appendix right after finishing the corresponding section in the main text. Having two bookmarks makes this easier.

Red Reader

Bosses’ Strategic Plan: Jails, Not Hospitals

I attended another public hearing, one of an endless series, about the “possible” closing of Oak Forest Hospital in Chicago. The bosses slated Oak Forest and Provident Hospitals to be closed in the near future. These are two of only three public hospitals that still operate in Cook County. The bosses laid off most of the workers at Oak Forest & Provident. Before, Oak Forest took care of as many as 1,100 patients; now it is a shell that has 55 patients left. Provident had 200 beds; now only 25. It no longer accepts ambulances in its emergency room either.

In every public hearing, the workers and patients opposed the shuttering of these vital health facilities. However, the bosses — in the form of the mostly Democratic Cook County Board, and its Health Facilities Governing Board, chaired by the former CEO of Tupperware — have other plans. They are in the process of implementing a “strategic plan” that requires the county to save money instead of the lives of the working class.

The bosses justify their plans by stating that by closing hospitals, they will be able to provide better and more health care. If this sounds like nonsense, it’s because it is. The “strategic plan” is a thinly-veiled racist assault on mostly black, Latino, Asian and white working-class patients of Oak Forest and Provident. This is class warfare: the bosses attack programs and resources that the working class heavily depends on.

The budget is used to suppress the workers. The largest item in the county budget is for jails (the largest in the U.S.). Its budget is $405 million, plus $38 million for the Juvenile Detention Center. The budget for the hospitals and clinics is 30% less, $313 million. The bosses’ priority is to keep workers under control, and to protect their faltering system.

Why is Cook County risking the welfare of the workers that live here? The bosses cut back to pay for their endless oil wars. They are in a life-and- death battle with their imperialist competitors to gain more profits, cheap labor and expanding markets that capitalism relies on for its survival. In times of economic stagnation or depression, the bosses increase economic exploitation, cut back services and become more repressive. By doing so, they expose the true nature of their ruling-class dictatorship. It is PLP’s mission to smash the dictatorship of the ruling class and establish a system run by the workers, for the workers.

The struggle to keep Oak Forest and Provident open will help win more workers to the Party and hasten capitalism’s demise.

Chicago Hospital Worker

Fighting for the Youth in Bogotá

The greatest desire for some workers’ families is for their children to become professionals, in other words to achieve an education similar to the capitalists’ children. Families that have managed to successfully graduate some children not only lose them but even become personal enemies.

The bosses teach these youth individualism and take advantage of it to maintain control. They win some to become their collaborators in the class struggle. Such individuals then become the bosses’ best ally in politics and government.

While the contrary phenomenon may occur, with some in the dominant class being influenced by our class and even become leaders in our struggles, this is less frequent and carries the danger of falling prey to capitalist ideology.

I work with five young CHALLENGE readers in an area the bourgeoisie has stigmatized as a “red-light district” in Bogotá, a section bathed in proletarian blood by death squads serving the bourgeoisie. Backed by the military, they engage in “social cleansing,” murdering everyone who disagrees with the current exploitative system, including more than 300 youths for “disobeying the rules.”

The current mayor, Samuel Moreno, utilized many of these killers in his election campaign, installing more security cameras and hiring more cops to impose a curfew for those under 18. Hundreds of adolescents were arrested.

Enduring this society of exploitation and political maneuvering, many of these youths have begun to disobey, but essentially remain passive. Our CHALLENGE readers are conscious fighters but many others pursue an idle existence, drowning in drugs, sexism and alcohol.

Without a clear revolutionary understanding, without unity of thought and action, all will continue this way until the capitalist crisis of war overwhelms them. We will not only not support any and all political gangsters but will intensify the system’s contradictions and take destiny into our own hands, forging the communist future we need. We expose the hypocrisy of “Democracy” as a bosses’ dictatorship, showing that the only alternative is communist revolution.

That’s why we fight ceaselessly for the unity of soldiers, students and workers, led by communists, against the racist system attacking our class. Through this our anti-imperialist and communist ideas and actions will build an internationalist PLP. The rotten bosses’ state may exist in different forms (monarchy, republic, fascist) but its criminal essence is always the same — the dictatorship of imperialism.